Hi, my name is April!
I was digging into Dora's personality as part of an ongoing conversation that started in the last WCDT, in which some of us were discussing how the Dora/Tai dynamic seemed boringly free of conflict, and were speculating on what sources of new drama there might be. This is close reading. It's a way of enjoying a work of fiction.
Would appreciate it if you lose the condescending tone, thanks. I'm a Master's student in English lit at a pretty damned good school. I know what "close reading" is. I also was a part of that thread speculating on drama and mentioned a few things myself about the Dora/Tai dynamic and how I actually agreed that it was a bit dull. Not a problem if you didn't notice and/or care about my contributions there, but I'm not feeling the contempt in the above.
And that's wonderful, but she isn't you, and when I write an analysis on a character, it is not a personal attack on the readers who like her. If you want to contribute something positive about her to the conversation, that's your prerogative! But please don't attack me just for putting down some observations I thought were interesting. If you feel like I've misread Dora or failed to present her perspective, please step up and do it! I would be fascinated to read such a thing.
Right ... and I contributed "positive" things about her in a subsequent post, most of which you've chosen to ignore in favor of bashing me. Moving on ...
I don't see this at all. Tai introduces Dora to Allie. Allie makes a salacious gesture, which could mean anything from "Have fun with Tai! She's a handful" to "I got there first and I could go there again". Dora leaps to the worst possible interpretation, which is in character for her, and shows that she hasn't gone very far toward resolving her jealousy/paranoia issues.
Tai tries to defuse the situation by prodding Dora into bragging about her own past partners, which she thinks will give Dora a chance to strut her stuff and rebuild her bruised ego. This makes sense coming from her poly context, but Dora doesn't understand why she's driving at it and gets more paranoid and alienated. Then they talk to their friends, regroup, and have makeup sex.
The scene ends on a pleasant note, but we're still hanging on the ellipsis, and it remains to be seen whether or not Dora and Tai are developing real communication skills, or if they're using their physical rapport to paper over Dora's unaddressed-in-therapy emotional problems.
Yeah. No.
We have a woman, who doesn't greet Dora in any way and basically ignores her until Tai introduces them. Then still says nothing and smirks, and then walks away STILL NOT ACKNOWLEDGING DORA'S EXISTENCE. So ... no. I'm gonna choose to interpret the smirk as something not positive and Dora saying "She smirked at me" is not "leaping to the worst possible conclusion." She's stating a fact. A rude woman was rude to her, and Tai admits they hooked up, which puts her rudeness into context, but does not make it any more excusable.
Also you also conveniently leave out that Dora expressed to Tai - in a not-yelling, not-angry fashion - that she did not want to "rank" her against her past partners. Tai not only didn't take the hint, but tried to bring Marten into it. I think Dora can be excused for not wanting to rank her current girlfriend against her most recent ex-boyfriend, who is the underling of said girlfriend.
But to you, that's Dora being "paranoid and alienated."
Because she has the nerve to not want to talk about how many orgasms her girlfriend's employee might have given her in comparison to her girlfriend. Um ...
They acknowledge that they went to their friends for help and Dora jokes with Tai about it. They have makeup sex in part as an extended punchline and to square the circle from Tai's mentioning of her A game earlier in the arc. There's nothing in that to suggest that Dora is using sex to mask her anger or anything of that nature. There also has been no hint of Dora jealousy where Tai is concerned, nothing suggesting she has pushed Tai's boundaries, as Dora did with Marten, or the like. Dora is getting better. By degrees. She is hardly perfect. No one in this strip is. But Dora very rarely gets the benefit of the doubt, at best. At worst, her motives are completely misinterpreted.
This is like, the basic level of decency I would require of a real friendship, and does not deserve singling out for high praise.
All righty then.
Right, I'm bowing out. I'm not going to derail the discussion, get an infraction, etc., for arguing uselessly on the Internet. We don't see eye to eye. It happens. I will cease responding to you hereafter, as I think we've reached an impasse.
@ReindeerFlotilla, you make very good points. I do agree that there are issues of agency at play here on its face. However, I'm one of those "Your rights end where mine begin" sorts. Dora has the right to make a decision for herself. We do not know - yet - if she is making the decision on the Svenectomy because of Faye. However, we DO know she made the decision to keep Faye in the dark. You are absolutely correct that it is a problem and that could come to bite her on the arse. When that arc started, I even said that I had no idea why Dora would even tell Marten, knowing how he has the propensity to spill the beans, even when he doesn't mean to, and that anyway, Faye knows when he's hiding stuff, and that if she finds out Marten knew about this and Dora didn't tell her, it will be A Big Problem. I'm hoping that when the Angus stuff blows over, Dora will tell Faye. Not to get her permission, because that's none of Faye's business, but to tell her "Hey, look, I just need you to know that I have decided FOR ME, that Sven is a poisonous influence and I'm cutting him out and barring him from the shop. Obviously this is just a thing I am doing and I don't expect you to follow suit any more than I would have expected you to stop being friends with Marten after we broke up. But I am telling you because you're my friend and I think you should know. I did tell Marten and I asked him not to say anything to you because you had all the Angus stuff on your plate. I'm sorry I kept you in the dark."
I really don't know what, if anything, she should tell Tai. Or maybe she's mentioned it already. I don't know. I suppose Tai should know, but tbh, I'm not really that invested in Tai/Dora. I am, however, invested in Dora and Faye's friendship, and I really think that in the coming days, they will need to lean on each other, so a huge blowup over Sven of all things, would sort of suck.